


Catch and Release

by rosecake



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Kidnapping, Lima Syndrome, M/M, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-23 05:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11983023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/pseuds/rosecake
Summary: Leonard needs Central City's new vigilante out of his way, so he kidnaps him.  He ends up with more than he'd bargained for.Set afterGoing Roguebut beforeRevenge of the Rogues, so around mid-point Season 1.





	Catch and Release

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).



"You've seen that same video a million fucking times. Are we ever gonna pull an actual job again?" 

The video clip ended, but Leonard had it set up to loop back around to the beginning and start over automatically. The man in the red suit was moving too fast for the camera to pick up much of anything. If Leonard hadn't seen him in person, he'd have no way of knowing for sure that the blurred shape in the video _was_ a man. 

"Yes," said Leonard. "I just want to make sure we don't end up in prison immediately afterwards." 

Mick huffed. "I don't know why you're so afraid of this guy." 

"A healthy respect for the enemy isn't the same thing as fear." 

"Whatever," said Mick. "First you give me this neat gun, and now you won't even let me use it. If this guy's such a problem, why don't we just switch up our base of operations? Florida's nice. There's a lot of rich people in Miami." 

"That's short-term thinking, Mick," said Leonard. "What happens to us when Miami gets a vigilante? The world's changing. We need to change along with it if we're going to survive." 

"Yeah, well, I think we need to rob somebody. _Anybody_." 

"All in due time." 

Mick was clearly frustrated, and Leonard would have to deal with that frustration soon, but they weren't quite to the boiling point yet. It could wait while Leonard worked on the bigger problem. And that frustrating red blur was currently a more pressing problem than Mick's impatience. 

"Fine. Just remember to give me a heads up when you decide to finally get your head out of you ass," said Mick. 

He slammed the door as he left. Leonard had spent enough time around Mick that he was used to his displays of temper, though, so he didn't let it distract him from the plan he was putting together. 

He didn't quite have all the pieces in place yet. But he was close.

*

Barry's head was pounding when he woke up, and worse, he couldn't remember how he'd ended up unconscious in the first place. It was, unfortunately, not an uncommon experience for him these days. But he usually he woke up in S.T.A.R. Labs, and he knew even before he opened his eyes that he was someplace else. Everything was wrong. The bed was wrong, the smell was wrong, the feel of the air currents was wrong.

"You awake yet?" 

Barry groaned. He'd only gone up against Snart the one time, but he remembered his voice. He inhaled, trying to collect himself despite the throbbing in his head. He opened his eyes and there was Snart, sitting on a chair across from him, looking cool and collected. Barry's mask was missing, and he was bare from the waist up. Snart had seen his face, and for all Barry knew he'd even taken photos, but Barry didn't let himself stop and think about how many problems that was going to cause. Right now he needed to act, to escape. The rest of it he could deal with once he was safe. 

He moved, and the idea was that he would get up, knock Snart out, and be back out the door and on his way to S.T.A.R. Labs before Snart could so much as blink. Instead he all he managed to do was fall off the bed and onto the floor. 

"What did you do to me?" he asked. His limbs felt like lead, heavy and unresponsive, and every movement he tried to make was slow and uncoordinated. 

"It's nice to see that tech I found works properly," said Snart. 

Barry hadn't noticed it at first, in the confusion of waking up somewhere strange with Leonard Snart looking down at him, but there was a thick black cuff around his right wrist. He could put two and two together, but he asked anyway. 

"What the hell is this thing?" he demanded, holding out his wrist. 

"Aren't you the scientist here, Barry? You tell me." 

Barry swallowed. He might have guessed, given that his mask had been removed, that Snart would have figured out who he was already. 

"I'm going to take a wild guess and assume it's what's blocking my powers," said Barry, running a finger along the cuff. There wasn't any seam that he could feel, or any kind of traditional lock. "Where'd you steal this from?" 

"None of your business. And I wouldn't pry at it too much. Any tampering and it'll take your hand clean off." 

Barry stopped messing with it immediately. Snart might be lying, but he didn't feel like risking a hand over it. 

"What am I doing here?" asked Barry. "Where is here?" he added, looking around the room. No windows, so it was probably in a basement somewhere. There wasn't much in the way of furniture other than the bed and the chair Snart was sitting in. 

"That's for me to know and you to spend all night thinking about," said Snart, and he got up to leave. 

"Wait, that's it? You kidnap me and now, what, you're just going to leave me here?" Barry tried to keep the panic out of his voice, but it was there. He wanted answers and he wasn't going to get answers if Snart just up and _left_. 

"So needy already. Don't worry, I'll see you in the morning." 

Barry tried to stagger to his feet, but his head still wasn't right from earlier and the sudden motion caused a wave of dizziness. He half sat, half fell back onto the bed. "Can I at least have a shirt?"

"No," said Snart. 

Then the door was shut and Barry was left to himself.

*

"Congratulations, you caught him," said Mick. "Now what are we going to do with him?"

"I want to figure out what makes him tick," said Leonard. 

There was a camera in the room they'd left him in. Barry had looked around for a few minutes, and then he'd gone back to the bed and lain down. It was difficult to tell if he was really sleeping or not through the camera, but either way, he wasn't actively attempting to escape. 

"And after that?" 

"We'll see," said Leonard. He had a few ideas in mind. "For the moment, though, I think it's been long enough since we helped ourselves to other people's money." 

" _Finally_ ," said Mick. He already had his gun in hand. He hadn't, as far as Leonard knew, let it out of his sight since Leonard had given it to him. "Let's burn something down."

*

When Snart came back the next day the first thing he did was hand Barry a bag of clothing. Barry was grateful that, at the very least, he wasn't going to have to spend the duration of his captivity in what was left of the speed suit he'd been caught in. He wasn't sure how Snart had known what size to get, and he really didn't _want_ to know, he just wanted a shirt.

The clothes were familiar, and it took Barry a second to realize that Snart hadn't just been a weirdly good judge of his size and taste, but that he'd actually brought Barry his own clothes. 

"These are mine," he said. "These were in my apartment. You robbed me?" 

Of course he had, he was a thief, wasn't he? He knew who Barry was, and from there it probably hadn't been very difficult to figure out where Barry lived. And now Barry knew that he'd been in his apartment, riffling around in his stuff. 

"I very thoughtfully went and picked some things up for you. You should be grateful. You're going to be here for a while, you know." 

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," said Barry, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "There are people out there looking for me right now." 

Snart looked at him for a second, then stood. "I want you to come with me," he said. 

"No thanks, I'm fine here." 

Snart rolled his eyes. "If being difficult for no reason makes you feel better about your situation, then by all means be difficult, but let's be clear here. There's an easy way and a difficult way this can go for you, and you are straying very close to discovering the difficult way." 

His voice stayed light and even, but the menace was there in the undercurrent of his tone, enough to send a chill up Barry's spine. In the end he followed Snart, hesitantly, not sure where they were going. Snart lead him up a staircase and down a hall, and then pulled him through a door. Inside was an office, and spread out on the wall across from the door was what looked like weeks of research. Research on Barry, research on Barry's family, his _friends_ , and their family and friends. There were photos of Joe and Isis and Eddie, and Caitlin and Cisco, and people he'd never even seen before who must have been Caitlin's and Cisco's family. 

Barry's heart skipped a beat at the display in front of him. Everyone he'd ever cared about, exposed. 

"You're smart, aren't you, Barry? You wouldn't have become a scientist if you weren't. So I'm sure I don't have to waste my time coming up with creative threats." 

"You can't--" started Barry, but Snart placed a finger to his mouth to silence him. 

"I don't care about any of these people, Barry. Not in the slightest. And I won't ever care about any of them, not unless you give me a reason to." 

"Okay," said Barry. He wasn't sure how long he'd been held captive, not after having been knocked out, not after being kept in a windowless room. How long had it taken Snart to figure out who he was? To find out so much about the people around him? "What do you want from me?" 

"Now there's a much better attitude," said Snart.

*

What Leonard wanted, first and foremost, was for the Flash to stay out of his way. They'd had him locked away for three days, and in those three days they'd emptied three different armored cars. And at no point had they so much as seen a cop. Leonard was happy. Mick was happy too, even though he'd have been happier if he'd had more chances to use his heat gun.

He could have accomplished the same result by killing Barry. But Leonard wanted more than just an easier time on the job. He also wanted information. 

"You're telling me that you got hit by lighting, and now you can travel faster than sound," said Leonard. "That's it? Lightning hit a CCPD forensic tech and turned him into the perfect crime fighter by random chance?" 

"Yes? What exactly were you expecting?" asked Barry. He sounded a little defensive. "That's how everyone got their powers. The particle accelerator exploded, weird things happened, and then a bunch of people woke up with new abilities. Why? Did you think there was some kind of formula I could give you?" 

Leonard still found Barry's explanation a little hard to swallow, but he left it alone for the moment. If there was some way to control who did and didn't get abilities, he'd find out about it eventually. "Do you know who the Star City vigilante is?"

"No," said Barry, too quickly, and Leonard made a note to go back and take a second look at his known associates. 

"Does anyone else in your little gang of supporters have meta-human powers?" 

"No," said Barry. "Just me." 

Leonard believed him that time, and he was glad. It would make things easier. "Did you have any involvement in the weapons research at S.T.A.R. labs?" 

Barry flinched at the question, and Leonard wasn't sure how to take that. Was he heavily involved? Not involved, but worried about why Leonard was asking? "There is no weapons research at S.T.A.R. Labs," he said, and Leonard knew that was a lie, because he had two very advanced guns that said otherwise. "They made my suit for me," continued Barry after a minute. "That's all. That's it. They don't-- I don't work there. We don't work together. I barely know them." 

Leonard smiled. He didn't believe any of that, not for a second, not after he'd already personally witnessed them working together, but he'd let Barry lie for now if it made him feel safer.

*

Barry ate with Snart and Rory, which he had to admit was better than eating alone. Only slightly, though, and only because he was left alone so much of the time.

"I have a question," said Rory. 

"Shoot," said Snart. 

"Why haven't we killed him yet?" he asked, gesturing at Barry. 

" _Hey_ ," said Barry. He'd wondered the same thing more than once, but that didn't mean he liked having the possibility brought up over lunch. 

"I have plans for him," said Snart. 

Plans that seemed like they involved S.T.A.R. Labs, although Barry hadn't quite figured out what Snart was trying to get at with all of his questions. "Do those plans involve letting me see my loved ones any time soon?" asked Barry. 

"What do you think?" 

Barry didn't bother responding to that. He wasn't sure how long he'd been missing, because keeping track of time was difficult. At least a week, but probably longer. 

He knew it couldn't last forever, he just wasn't sure exactly how it was going to end.

*

Leonard poured the diamonds from the previous night's haul out onto the table, letting his fence, a guy named Laurence, get a good look at them.

"Somebody's on a roll," said Laurence. 

"Hit a lucky streak," said Leonard, smiling. With the new high-tech guns and no meta-human vigilantes around to mess up their plans, the old cop and robbers game had gotten a hell of a lot easier. 

"Lucky, sure," said Laurence, rolling a diamond between his fingers. "You gotta watch out, you know. You're not the only player in town, and some of the competition is getting a little ruffled." 

Leonard ran a hand along his cold gun, felt the cool metal of it under his hands. He didn't have much to fear from the cops these days, but other criminals? They may not be any brighter than the police, but they could be a hell of a lot more vicious. 

"Do you have anything specific you want to add on to that?" 

"I'm not getting involved in anything," said Laurence. Leonard waited patiently for him to continue talking as he slid the diamonds into a padded box, and then handed Leonard a stack of cash in exchange. They'd worked together a long time, so Leonard was willing to wait until he got home to count it. "Don Santini's been asking around," he finally said. "That casino you knocked over a few days ago, that place wasn't entirely on the level, you know. Some people got upset." 

"Thanks, Laurence. I'll keep it in mind," said Snart. 

That was something to think about. But Leonard wasn't going to let some old mafia types slow him down. 

He took the long way back to the house like he always did, just in case anybody tried to follow him. Really, they ought to be moving around more often, but he'd put a lot of effort into arranging the security around the current place, and any attempt to move all of it was going to be a hassle. A hassle he might need to go through sooner rather than later, though. 

He walked in on Mick and Barry sitting on the couch, watching the local news. 

"And what is he doing outside of his room?" asked Leonard. 

"He said he was bored," said Mick, not even bothering to look up from the TV. 

"I was in fact incredibly bored," said Barry, looking up at Leonard expectantly, as if Leonard cared whether he was bored or not. 

"That's not a good reason." 

"Come on," said Mick. Mick wasn't normally that into the news, but some meta had apparently set fire to a few city blocks downtown, so he was currently transfixed. "It's just TV. Even in prison they let you watch TV." 

Leonard sighed. "Fine," he said, watching as the television played clips of the earlier confrontation between the new meta-human and the police. The police had it under control, but the news anchors were talking like it had been a close call. 

Leonard wondered if the cops had gotten any help from S.T.A.R. Labs. 

The place had never been far from his thoughts over the past few months. He'd gotten the guns from them, of course, and he knew full well that the guns were just a sampling of the technology they had on offer. Still, even though he was sure they'd lost their greatest weapon when he caught the Flash, he was wary of trying to pull a heist on a facility with completely unknown and unheard of defenses. He'd grilled Barry on it some, but he didn't trust the kid to be totally forthcoming yet. 

No, he wasn't ready for a heist on S.T.A.R. Labs yet. But he'd get there.

*

Rory started letting Barry watch television on the regular, and it seemed like the news got worse every day. New meta-humans were popping up all the time, and as near as Barry could tell, none of them had particularly good intentions for the city. The cops had a lid on it for the time being, but there was fear in the city, a feeling like things were going to spiral out of control sooner rather than later. Barry could hear the anxiety in the voices of the reporters.

"Somebody needs to do something," said Barry. "And, let's be real, you and Mick aren't going to be the ones to do it." 

"S.T.A.R. Labs created this meta-human problem, and I'm sure they can fix it. We don't need to get involved." 

"If you would just let me go help, I promise I'd come right back," said Barry. He knew it wasn't going to work, but he felt like he had to at least _try_ to convince Snart to let him go. 

"I wasn't born yesterday, Barry," said Snart, and there was a cold edge of warning to his voice. 

Barry ignored it. He walked up to Leonard, his cuffed wrist held out in front of him. "You know this is going to affect you too, right? What's going to be left for you and Rory to steal if some meta on a rampage takes out the whole city?" 

Snart stepped into his personal space, moving Barry's arm to the side as he did so, and Barry had to stop himself in the middle of an involuntary step backwards. "I'm sure your friends will be able to handle whatever pops up," said Snart, reaching up to put a hand on the side of Barry's face. From anyone else, it would have been a comforting gesture, but nothing Snart ever did was meant to comfort. There was always a threat, even if it went unspoken. "Besides, every second they spend on the most recent meta-human is one less second spent looking for you, isn't it?" 

Barry swallowed, trying to keep his emotions under wraps. He wanted to lash out, but it wasn't going to help anything if he did. "They need help," he said. 

"Too bad," said Leonard. "The cuff isn't coming off."

*

"I just want to talk to my dad. Please? I just want to let Joe know I'm okay."

Leonard almost told him no. He didn't like the idea of outside contact. As of right now, if his original trap had gone of as smoothly as he'd planned, none of the rest of Barry's gang even had any idea who'd taken him. Leonard wanted to keep things that way. A phone call was too traceable, too risky. Success must have made him soft, though, because he eventually caved. He drove Barry out to the suburbs, and when he judged they'd gone far enough he handed Barry a burner phone. Maybe, if he was lucky, Barry's friends would waste time searching the area around the wrong cellphone tower. 

"One minute, and I'll be timing you," he said. "If you say anything that sounds like a coded hint about me, or our location, I'm freezing a limb and then breaking it off." 

"Thank you," said Barry as he took the phone, his voice thick with gratitude. 

Leonard regretted giving him a full minute almost immediately, because sitting there counting down the seconds while Barry poured his heart out to his dad over the phone in the next seat was one of the most awkward things he'd ever done. All the earnest emotion made his skin crawl, but he'd promised a minute, and he wasn't going to go back on his word now. 

"Time," said Leonard after exactly sixty seconds, and Barry handed back the phone without complaint and without begging for more time. Leonard appreciated that. He froze the phone before he tossed it out the window, making sure to run over it as he headed back for the house. 

Barry was quiet for a while, his breathing loud in the silence of the car, and Leonard was going to kill him if he started crying. He kept it together, though. 

"Thanks," he said eventually, his voice a little rough. 

"Whatever," said Leonard. "Don't think it's going to happen again."

*

Snart placed a parcel of paper in front of him.

"What's this?" asked Barry, but as soon as he got a good look he figured it out for himself. 

"The schematics for the cold gun," said Snart, confirming Barry's guess. "They're a little rough. When I got the gun, I just got the gun itself, so I had to back into how it worked. I'm no engineer, so it involved a deal of guesswork." 

"You drew these up?" asked Barry, spreading the paper across the table so he could see everything at once. Snart may not be an engineer, but he could have fooled Barry with the amount of detail he'd managed to put together. 

"Yes," said Leonard. "And you, Barry Allen, are going to help me build a better cold gun." 

Barry's head snapped up. "Wait, what? You can't be serious." 

"Time to earn your room and board. We're not keeping you around just to look pretty." 

Barry did his best to ignore the comment and looked back down at the schematics in front of him. "I honestly don't know what you expect from me," he said. "I didn't build it, Cisco did. And I think you might understand it better than me."

"Cisco Ramon?" asked Leonard, leaning forward, and Barry flinched. He shouldn't have said that. The last thing he wanted was for Cisco to get snatched too. 

"Well, he was on the team, at least," said Barry, trying to walk back what he'd said as much as possible. "I can look at it, I guess. I just don't understand-- Nevermind, I'll look at it." 

"What don't you understand?" said Leonard. 

Barry should have let it go, but he couldn't manage to keep his mouth shut. 

"I don't understand why you bother with this whole criminal enterprise thing. I mean, the cold gun? Mick's gun? Those guns are breaking-edge science. If you can figure those out, you could be working at almost any research and development lab in the country. You could be helping people, not killing them." 

"I'm a thief, not a killer," said Snart. 

"You're not a sociopathic thrill-killer, but that doesn't make you a good person," said Barry. "You've killed innocent people." 

It was the truth, but Barry should have kept it to himself, because he didn't like the look in Snart's eyes. 

"True, and you'd do well to remember that," said Snart. "You're going to look at these plans, and you're going to help me make a better gun. Otherwise I'm not going to have very much use for you, am I?" 

He left the room, and Barry looked at the schematics he'd left behind, but his eyes glossed right over them. There was a tightness in his chest, and he couldn't concentrate on anything else.

*

Leonard left Barry alone for a good long while after giving him the technical drawings of the cold gun. When he came back, Barry had stacked the papers into a neat pile on the seat of the chair in his room.

"I'm not helping you with this," said Barry. 

"I thought I was very clear about what I expected from you the last time we spoke," said Leonard. He stepped forward, and he expected Barry to back up, but Barry held his ground. "So why, exactly, do you think it's a good idea to be telling me no?" 

"I'm not going to help you hurt people more efficiently." 

They were close already, but Leonard took another step forward, letting a cold and vicious smile slip across his face as he crowded into Barry's personal space. He kept pressing forward until Barry was forced to move back, until Barry's back was pressed flat against the wall and he had no further room to move. 

"Barry, Barry," said Leonard, leaning forward to whisper the words right into Barry's ear. "We've talked about what happens if you're disobedient, right?" 

Leonard was close enough that he could feel the shudder that went through Barry's body, but Barry's voice was still even when he answered. "You haven't killed me yet," he said. "I think if you were really going to you'd have done it already." 

_I've got nobody to blame for this but myself_ , thought Leonard. _I went soft on him._

Maybe Mick had been right. Maybe they should have just killed him at the start and been done with it. They had the guns, and if there came a day when the guns weren't enough anymore they could figure it out then. Except that Barry hadn't been wrong, either. One day a meta-human might come along that the cops couldn't deal with, that S.T.A.R. Labs couldn't deal with, and then he'd regret having dumped the Flash in a river somewhere. 

Still, there were a lot of unpleasant things you could do a person besides killing them, and Leonard certainly had plenty of experience in being unpleasant. He took Barry's jaw in his hand, and Barry tried to jerk away, but without his meta-human abilities he didn't have the strength to go anywhere unless Leonard let him.

"I'm going to give you one more chance to get this right," he said. "Don't waste it." 

Barry glared up at him until Leonard let go of him. And the last thing Leonard should have done was give him a second chance, but as naturally as cruelty came to him, he found he wasn't feeling up to it at the moment.

*

The threat stayed with him, but the problem was that Barry couldn't have concentrated on the task in front of him even if he'd wanted to. All he could think about was Leonard Snart, pressed up against him, talking right against his ear. He was still shaking with a nervous energy he couldn't seem to dispel, not locked in a small room by himself.

"Oh, God," he said to the empty the room. "I've been alone for too long. That's all it is." 

He was on his feet the second he heard Snart approaching, pacing, waiting for the inevitable. 

"Had a change of heart, I hope?" asked Snart, shutting the door behind him. 

"No," said Barry. "Not really." 

Snart sighed, more theatrically than necessary. "Barry, you know that's not the answer I wanted." 

"You can't keep me here forever," said Barry. 

"What makes you so sure about that?" asked Snart. "You've said that before, but nobody's come to get you yet." He moved forward, and it was the same as last time, he kept moving forward until Barry's back was pressed against the wall and there was no more space between them. It was unsettling, sure, but Barry had reached the point where he was too tired of the game to be intimidated by it anymore. 

"Eventually you're going to have to kill me or let me go, and I still don't think you're going to kill me." 

Snart tilted his head, and there was a dark look in his eyes, and for a second Barry wondered if he was wrong. But then Snart pulled away for the moment, giving Barry space to breath. "Why are you so eager to leave, anyway? I've given you everything you need, haven't I?" 

There was a light, mocking tone to Snart's voice, and now he was being teased, and Barry didn't enjoy it any more than he enjoyed being threatened. "I need to see my friends," said Barry. "I need to see my family." 

"Oh, Barry," said Leonard. "Are you getting lonely?" 

"Yes," snapped Barry, even though he knew he shouldn't be admitting it, knew it was just something else for Snart to use against him. "Of course I'm lonely. I haven't seen anyone but you and Mick for _weeks_." 

"Well," said Snart, leaning forward, and now he was far too close again. "I can help you with that, Barry, all you need to do is ask." 

"I don't need _you_ ," said Barry, except he was starting to think that maybe he did, at least a little. "I need--" 

And then Snart was kissing him on the mouth, hard, hard enough that Barry forgot whatever else it was he was going to say. His hands caught in Snart's jacket, and he'd meant to push him off but instead he just pulled him tighter. And if he'd really meant to push him away, then he shouldn't have opened his mouth so wide, let him in so easily. 

Snart kissed his way along Barry's jawline, down to his neck, so rough that it might be more accurate to call it biting than kissing. 

"Are you sure about that?" asked Snart after he pulled away, and he was frustratingly even-toned while Barry couldn't do anything but pant for air. 

Barry wasn't really sure of anything at that point. Well, that wasn't true. He was absolutely certain that he was making a bad decision, but he didn't really care. If Snart wasn't going to let him leave, he was at least going to give him some prolonged human contact. Barry slipped his hands down, trying to get Snart's pants open, put Snart pulled him away. He grabbed Barry's wrists and pinned them both above his head with one hand. Barry was pretty sure he could slip out of the hold if he wanted to, he just didn't want to. He wanted to stay exactly where he was and let Leonard fuck him into the wall. 

"I think you do need me, Barry," he said. Snart had Barry's jeans pulled down in no time at all, and Barry gasped as his fingers wrapped around the base of Barry's cock. 

Snart's hand stayed still for a moment, and Barry exhaled. "Yes," he said. At that moment Barry would have said nearly anything to get Snart's hand moving. "Yes, I need you. _Please_." 

Finally Snart started to stroke him, and Barry moaned. He couldn't keep his legs from trembling, and he was glad Snart had him pressed so tightly against the wall, because otherwise he was sure he'd fall. 

"Faster," he said, and Snart laughed at him. 

"You keep forgetting you're not the one in charge here," said Snart, not changing his pace at all. 

Barry thrust into his hand, not that it made much difference at all, not that it mattered. He was building up to a climax anyway, steadily, and he moaned again as he came into Snart's hand, the orgasm making his body shake. Snart let go of his wrists and he slumped forward, so that he was resting more against Snart than the wall. He could feel Snart's cock, still hard, pressing into his thigh, and it sent another wave of sensation through him, knowing that they weren't done. He didn't want them to be done. He wanted to draw it out, make the moment last for as long as it could.

*

"You're still going to prison when this is all over," said Barry.

"You can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better." 

It didn't make Barry feel better. In fact, it made him feel worse, but it didn't stop him from fucking Leonard again the first chance he got. 

"You could be a better person that you are right now, you know that, right?" said Barry, afterwards. 

Leonard sighed. "Please don't go delusional on me, Barry. You'll make me sad."

*

Leonard was a careful man, but everyone slipped up eventually. He'd expected that Barry's friends would figure things out, eventually, but in the end Don Santini's organization moved faster. Crime always moved faster. It was rude of them to come barging in during dinner, though.

The perimeter alarms Leonard set up when they first took up in the house gave him and Mick enough time to get their guns out, and things went fine for the first couple seconds of the fight. Sure, it would have been better if Barry had been left in the basement, but there wasn't a lot to be done about that after the shooting started. The kid at least had enough sense to stay out of the line of fire while he was powerless and unarmed. 

There were ten men total, and Leonard took out a few out with the cold gun, but he was forced to drop it after a stray bullet winged his arm. He reached out to grab it, but he wasn't fast enough, and before he could get it in his grasp a man was on top of him and throwing him against the wall. Mick hit the guy in the back with the heat gun, but at that point Leonard had already had the wind knocked out of him. 

He needed to move, but there was no air in his lungs, and his limbs refused to respond immediately. Leonard only needed a few seconds to recover, but they were seconds he didn't have as he watched the last of Santini's men raise his gun. For about a second Leonard thought he'd finally run out of luck, that he was going to die. But then Barry was in front of him, Leonard's cold gun in his hands, and his aim might not have been great but the cold gun had a wide enough range that precision wasn't really critical. 

The only problem was Barry didn't fire fast enough to stop the other guy from getting a shot off, too. 

The bullet hit Barry in the right side of his chest. He was already on the ground by the time Leonard got to him, one hand clenched to the wound and doing absolutely nothing to staunch the flow of blood. 

"I can heal," he rasped as Leonard lent down next to him. 

Leonard had heard people say a lot of weird things after being shot, and he ignored it as he shrugged out of his jacket. He pressed it to the wound, but he didn't really have any illusions as to how helpful it would be in stopping the blood. For a moment he had a strange, sentimental urge to tell Barry it'd be fine, but he'd seen his fair share of gunshot wounds, and he was pretty sure he'd be lying. Mick was standing over them, now, and at least Leonard could be confident that nobody else in the house was left alive to bother them any more. 

"I can heal," said Barry again. He had to stop and inhale, and Leonard wasn't reassured by the sucking noise that came with it. "Take of the cuff." 

"What?" 

"My powers, I can heal faster," he said, and that sounded like a fucking lie if Leonard had ever heard one, but what did he know? Barry really was bleeding out all over the floor, so if it was just a trick to get the cuff off, it was a little late for that. That, and Barry _had_ just taken a bullet for him, so Leonard was inclined to do what he asked. 

The cuff lock was keyed to Leonard's fingerprints, and it only took a second to get it off. Leonard waited for a moment, not exactly sure what he should expect when Barry's powers kicked back into gear. For Barry to stop bleeding? For the bullet wound to seal up on its own? Nothing? 

"Yeah, that didn't do shit. He needs a hospital," said Mick. 

"No," said Barry. He sounded terrible, but Leonard was surprised he could even still talk. "S.T.A.R. Labs. Caitlin." 

Dr. Caitlin Snow, who had been responsible for Barry's medical care while he was in a coma, and who was a confirmed associate of the Flash afterwards. Leonard was once again amazed that he was the only one to figure out the red blur's identity so far. They were doing a pretty terrible job of hiding it. 

He knew all about Dr. Snow, he had a whole dossier on her. "She's not a trauma surgeon," said Leonard. "You need a hospital." 

Barry looked like he was trying to say something, but the words weren't coming out of him. "Snow," he finally managed. 

There was a lot of blood, taking the cuff off hadn't done anything to stop that, and Leonard thought about ignoring him and dropping off at the hospital anyway. It seemed a lot less likely that he'd die, for one thing, and there was less of chance of Mick and Leonard getting ambushed trying to drop him off. But Barry wanted Dr. Snow, and Leonard figured at this point he might as well do as he asked. 

"Fine," he said, picking him up. "Whatever you want." 

He called Snow on the way over, explained that when he got to S.T.A.R. Labs he expected her and nobody else. 

"What did you do to him?" she asked, her voice shaking, and Leonard didn't bother explaining the situation to her. Barry would, when he came around. If he came around. 

When he got there it was her and Ramon waiting for them, and since Ramon was a scientist and not a cop he decided to be generous and let it go. Snow probably needed help getting Barry into the building anyway. 

"Good luck," he yelled as they drove off. The last thing he saw before they rounded the corner was Snow glaring at him, an ice cold expression on her face. She probably thought he was being sarcastic, and he didn't really blame her for that. 

Still, he really meant it.

*

For about a week Leonard was left to wonder what had happened after he and Mick had dropped Barry off at S.T.A.R. Labs. There was no sign of the Flash. There was also no sign of Barry Allen. Leonard figured that if he'd died, that probably would have made the news, so he might as well be optimistic.

And then all of a sudden Barry was inescapable, on every station. 

"When we're doing thirty to life for kidnapping and armed robbery I'm gonna remind you every fucking day that you had a million chances to kill him and didn't," said Mick. The news channel's footage of the the Flash was hazy, blurred beyond clear recognition, but they both knew it was Barry going up against the Weather Wizard outside the downtown Camor Bank building. 

He was moving a lot easier than Leonard would have expected from a guy who'd been shot a week earlier. He must've been serious about the healing thing. 

"We aren't doing time for anything. We know his name, and we know the names of everyone he cares about. His hands are tied." 

"You didn't even have to kill him yourself," complained Mick. "You could've just let him bleed out on his own. That's not a crime." 

"That would in fact have been a crime under the circumstances, Mick," said Leonard. He flipped through the local stations. It didn't matter which version of the news he landed on, because they were all showing the same thing. 

" _Long rumored on the internet, the presence of a meta-human vigilante in Central City was confirmed today when the Flash was caught on camera stopping a bank robbery in progress_ ," said the news anchor. " _What does this mean for the future of our city?_ " 

"I guess we're going to find out," said Leonard.


End file.
